Analysis of A Home-Made Fairy Tale
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Bud, come here to your uncle a spell,
And I'll tell you something you mustn't tell--
For it's a secret and shore-'nuf true,
And maybe I oughtn't to tell it to you--!
But out in the garden, under the shade
Of the apple-trees, where we romped and played
Till the moon was up, and you thought I'd gone
Fast asleep--, That was all put on!
For I was a-watchin' something queer
Goin' on there in the grass, my dear--!
'Way down deep in it, there I see
A little dude-Fairy who winked at me,
And snapped his fingers, and laughed as low
And fine as the whine of a mus-kee-to!
I kept still-- watchin' him closer-- and
I noticed a little guitar in his hand,
Which he leant 'ginst a little dead bee-- and laid
His cigarette down on a clean grass-blade,
And then climbed up on the shell of a snail--
Carefully dusting his swallowtail--
And pulling up, by a waxed web-thread,
This little guitar, you remember. I said!
And there he trinkled and trilled a tune--,
'My Love, so Fair, Tans in the Moon!'
Till presently, out of the clover-top
He seemed to be singing to, came k'pop!
The purtiest, daintiest Fairy face
In all this world, or any place!
Then the little ser'nader waved his hand,
As much as to say, 'We'll excuse you!' and
I heard, as I squinted my eyelids to,
A kiss like the drip of a drop of dew!
Scheme | AABBCCDEFFGGHBIJCCKALLMMNNOOJIBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111001 0111101101 110100111 01011011111 1100101001 1010111101 1011101111 10111111 11101101 11100111 11101111 0101101111 011100111 0110110111 11111100 11001001011 111010101101 101110111 0111101101 1001011 010110111 11001101011 01110101 11111001 1100110101 1111101111 011101 01111101 10101111 1111110110 11111111 0110110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,270 |
Words | 250 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 32 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 963 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 246 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 26, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 157 Views
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"A Home-Made Fairy Tale" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20777/a-home-made-fairy-tale>.
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